Blogs everywhere went dark for the past hour, tuning in to Glenn Beck’s interview with former Congressman Eric Massa. And nobody learned much of anything, beyond the value of purchasing gold. In fact, Massa apparently presented himself almost totally differently than he did to get Beck to book him on the show.

Frequently looking confused by the proceedings, Beck tried in vain to elicit some lurid tales of corruption in the Democratic Party, but was frustrated at every turn. Massa backtracked yet again from his radio show on Sunday, saying that he takes “full responsibility for my own actions” and that he forced himself out. He replied to the recent groping allegations by saying that anything could be taken out of context and that it mainly had to do with… tickle fights.

Massa, with his talk of tickle fights, and lurid text messages, didn’t exactly come off as credible. But the most he could come up with as a description of the seedy underbelly of Capitol Hill was… arm-twisting. Nothing he described was any different than typical politics, and was pretty weak even by those standards. He replied to the problems of Washington by giving a full-throated endorsement of campaign finance reform, probably a first on Beck’s program.

A frazzled Beck, at the end, told his audience, “I think I’ve wasted your time. I think this is the first time I’ve wasted an hour of your time.”

For the first time, I appreciated Beck’s comments.